


Dear and dead Agatha

by On_part_tous



Category: Dracula (TV 2020)
Genre: Agatha/Dracula - Freeform, Dracula2020, F/M, Mark Gatiss - Freeform, Ship, StevenMoffar, Translation, dead Agatha, nonne, sorry - Freeform, vampire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22469284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/On_part_tous/pseuds/On_part_tous
Summary: She's right. She's right. She was right on the Demeter. She was right all along. They played.He lost ; she won.
Relationships: Dracula & Agatha Van Helsing, Dracula/Agatha Van Helsing
Comments: 85
Kudos: 153





	1. Agatha

**Author's Note:**

> Hello ! I AM FRENCH, and English is really not as fluent as I wanted. So, considered that they are both not English ? If you have any idea off how to say something, tell me ! 
> 
> Enjoy !

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agatha is dead, and so what ?

His fingernails strum the glass table. He doesn't know what he's waiting for. Frozen, he is unable to face his own reflection.  
When he came out of the water towards this promised land and miraculously saw before him Agatha alive and breathing, a wave of euphoria had washed over him.  
He had come to terms with the idea of her death : a death that had cost him. A lot.  
But to see her alive in front of him had brought him sincere joy. Agatha, Agatha. You'll never leave me in peace.

What a disappointment to smell on her the perfume of another soul, of another human being. Same voice, same face: but no trace of his favorite sister in the eyes of this apparition. What a cruel prank of genetics.  
In a mere second all his hopes had collapsed in on themselves; it was when he figured out that it wasn't her, that she was dead and definitively so, that he realized his own prophecy.  
When, through that stupid circle, on the Demeter, he had whispered to her: I will miss you, terribly.  
He could feel her in his head. He felt her in his blood. Like a barely audible presence, a trace of her. How frustrating.  
His fingernails were strumming again.  
On the glass table in front of him lies a cream-colored manila folder. The autopsy of Agatha Van Helsing, found drowned a few miles from here. A 120-year-old autopsy, written with a feather. So much hassle, hands and fangs, to get it.  
And now that he's got it, he doesn't dare to open it.

“Agatha, Agatha, till the very end you will have stood up to me.”  
He barely realizes it when he talks to her.  
“I'm the stubborn type.”  
“I know that.”  
She's here. Not really there. He feels her presence, hears her voice in her thick accent. He's had her, sucked her up, eaten her. Capricious Agatha; sometimes she responds to him, and sometimes she doesn’t.  
“Count Dracula, be logical. There is nothing in this report that you don't already know; why do you put so much importance in it?”  
He hears her as if she is leaning over him, and drinks a little from his glass to regain his composure.

“Disgusting.”  
He laughs dryly at the nun's comment, and raises his cup.  
“You were much better.”  
“You're avoiding my question.”  
Even dead and buried, she is still bitter. He rarely converses with his victims. But he drank so much of her, and she's so stubborn.  
“Doesn't it strike you ? Isn’t strange to know that what's left of you is in those scraps of paper?”  
“You're doing it again.”  
He drinks and crosses his legs.  
That's right, he is. He's avoiding it. He received it yesterday; and instead of reading it, he bought a new suit, learned Mandarin ( thanks to a delicious woman ), in short: made himself busy so as not to face it. But it's daylight, he's finished all his procrastination. No more excuses.  
“No more excuses.”

“Get out of my head, Agatha.”  
“You're the one who put me there.”  
How to respond to that logic.  
His glass is empty. So he bends over, and delicately opens what's left of his beloved nun.  
He instantly regrets it. Sketches accompany the report. He recognizes her hands, her eyelids, the curve of her neck. He goes through it all, quickly.  
Words flash.  
Tortured.  
He closes the stupid file with rage.  
“The report is a bunch of crap. Wait till I find the descendants of those idiots.”  
Agatha's not answering.

“How can you defend such idiots?”  
He gets up, annoyed. Annoyed by her silence. Always something to say except when he talks to her.  
He takes the report, and throws it into the fire that burst out suddenly in the narrow fireplace.  
And when he turns back to the big table, for the first time since he came back, he sees her. Standing there in her nun's habit, just as he left her on the deck of the Demeter. Her hair untied, lips and hands ruined. The agony suits her.  
He's silent, they look at each other.  
“You never cease to be surprising.”  
“What word disturbs you, Count Dracula?”  
He sees her eyes blazing. It's reassuring to see her exist, even briefly.  
“Tortured ?”

Her accent makes the word rougher than it already is. He approaches the table, faces her. It's never happened before, to see or hear so much of an absorbed soul. A matter of character, perhaps ?  
“For example.” he concedes.  
“Or the rest?” she walks around the table to stand in front of him. Her bright eyes are hollowed out. She's inside him. Knows what was between the pages.  
“Dehydrated ? Lacerated skin ? The water in my lungs ? Do you know that drowning is the most painful way to die, Count Dracula ?”  
She's getting closer.  
“The water that fills the body, that chokes the brain. The terror, the heaviness, the consciousness that won't shut off, then finally the brain drowns and the lungs explode. It's not instantaneous at all. You made that last, too.”  
He crosses his hands, lacing his fingers.

She puts a hand on her own neck, taping the rope marks around her throat. Ah. He almost forgot.  
“And I've been through very little really, I am not equal to the martyrs of my religion, Count Dracula, but I do not find the term tortured particularly excessive.”  
“You played, and you lost, Agatha.”  
“I'm not some poor little sheep you've frightened, Count. And I regret nothing. I ask you as a scientist, do you find the term tortured excessive ?”  
“You're not a scientist, you're a nun.”  
“I was, Count. I'm not a nun anymore, I'm nothing. I am dead. And you feel guilty.”  
“Well, look at that.” He raises his head, licks his lips.

Agatha raises a finger, her eyes light up, and she smiles, almost cruelly.  
“You are a child who has broken his toy and realizes that he will never be able to fix it.”  
How he hates these moments of lucidity.  
“You're not a toy, you're an opponent.”  
“I don't care what you call me Count. I'm dead, and you realize too late that there is no way back from that.”  
She looks so real. He raises one hand. They're so close, he imagines her smell so clearly.

He raises his eyebrows, barely smiles and puts a finger against her neck. Barely a touch of the skin before Agatha dissolves into the air, with a laugh that sounds a little fake. Her condescending tone is absolutely unbearable.  
She is silent, disappears, leaving him alone with the crackling of the fire. He doesn't feel guilty. But she's not completely wrong. Having believed in her resurrection made a biting impression on him, followed by his disappointment.  
He turns to the fire and waits for the feeling to pass.  
It doesn't.  
“If you had given me the chance, I would have made you my bride.”  
His tone is accusatory.  
And she's not answering anything.  
She's right. She's right. She was right on the Demeter. She was right all along. They played.  
He lost ; she won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New version with the help off Emicmc for the English !


	2. Do you miss me ?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still French, but thank you a lot for the time some off you took to write a review. Enjoy the reading !

“It's not me.”  
“I know, Agatha.”  
He barely whispers.   
Zoe's room is a dreadfully boring place. A utilitarian room. The doctor sleeps on her back, one hand on her chest. Her regular breath is the only one that resonates.   
To the right of her bed, a bottle of pills and a glass of water. Her apartment is so empty : a hotel room would have been more personal.

Standing at the end of the bed, Dracula observes. Seeing in the dark had never been a problem.  
When she talks, when she moves, when she looks at him; he knows. He knows it's not Agatha, his Agatha.   
But when she sleeps, with her face relaxed and her eyelids closed: it's her. The scattered hair on the pillow, the oversized top similar to her ancestor's habit. Almost exactly a vision of Agatha Van Helsing when she lay unconscious on her bed in the Demeter.

Agatha, at last, the Agatha in his head, stands at the woman's bedside, and though they are close in age, the difference in confidence is glaring.  
“The poor child.”  
Ah. Agatha's sentimentality.  
She's dying, her blood stinks.  
“Leave her in peace.”  
“I don't bother her much.”  
“She is not me, Count Dracula.”  
“I know, Agatha, I read your lovely autopsy yesterday.”

He turns, kneels down beside her. Zoe has a different smell, a different taste. But she looks so similar. He has the unpleasant sensation of facing his guilt. A counterfeit of the one who had been his best opponent, of the one who could have been his best bride.  
“I would never have been your bride.”  
“You’re an exhausting ghost.”  
“I’m not a ghost, I'm a reminiscence.”  
He rolls his eyes at such spirited contradiction.   
Zoe moans turning around. The sister puts a ghostly hand on her forehead.   
He really is trying to empathize with dear Dr. Helsing. But she has the defect and quality of a familiar face. His interest in her boils down, and he knows it, to this. Interest. No matter how hard he tries, or how much he plays with her, it's not up to standard.

In this modern world, he has the same ease at defeating all men as in the old one : so fast that he doesn't even remember their names.  
“Doesn't it make you sick, Agatha? Knowing you died, but I've come back?”  
“How many lives did mine save in 123 years of sleep?”  
She's got an easy line. Today, she answers a lot.  
“Your life is worth much more than that.”  
“You shower me with surprising compliments for a man who failed to hang me.”  
He clicks his tongue and opens his arms as a sign of innocence.  
“Don't be ridiculous: I would have slit their throats while you were suffocating, then I would have cut the rope and kept you with me.”

“I prefer hanging, thank you.”  
She raises her eyebrows when she utters those words, a half smile on her face.  
Zoe twists, a deaf complaint stops their exchange. Agatha softens and straightens up, a sorry look in her eyes.   
The scientist's time is running out. Tick, tock. Her own clock has already been broken for a century and twenty-three years: but she can still feel remorse.  
Dracula no longer looks at Zoe; he stares at Agatha. She is so realistic: as annoying and yet charming as he has always known her to be.  
She feels his gaze. She is in his head, she feels everything. You will be a part of me, he promised her. She was.  
“Do you miss me, Count Dracula?”  
Her tone oscillates between snide and soft.

“The land is much easier to conquer without you.”  
“Do you miss me, Count Dracula?”  
“I just answered you.”  
“No, you dodged it.”  
“Mortals are far less competitive than you are. I have to lower the bar a little, or I'll accidentally become king of the world before the year is out.”  
“Please respond. To. My. Question.”  
He can’t answer it; has no idea. He has an unpleasant feeling, a need to see her, to drink her that he has never felt before. And immense frustration at not being able to satisfy his desire, he who always wants everything, right away. Between her and her damn drowning, and her look-alike and her damn cancer.   
It's torture.

He stares at Zoe and doesn't answer.   
She's the one who breaks the silence   
“When you reach an answer, call me.”   
And like a shadow, she disappears. The sensation starts again: in truth, the sensation from the beach doesn't leave him anymore.  
It should break Zoe's neck. Save them both a lot of pain.   
Instead, he puts his hands in his pockets and walks out without a sound.   
Agatha's sulking? That's perfect. There's enough humans on earth. He'll find one. Who won’t be an annoying and dead nun.  
All this fuss has made him hungry.  
  
That damnable feeling won't leave him.


	3. The Demeter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go OUT off my head Agatha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO. MUCH. To emicmc. She helps me with English YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

The wind's barely blowing, it's a beautiful night. The Demeter breaks the waves, Agatha smells delicious. 

It's a real delight to him that she understood about cabin number nine. Until the end, until the last minute of their game, it had been fun, frenzied and merciless. She was perfect all along. 

“Why are you making conversation with me?” He asked her with both hands on the bar. And that's the end. 

She looks very peaceful, his dear nun, for a woman whose life is measured in minutes. How he'll miss her. It's been such a fun week.

“It's what people do.”

Ah, but Agatha. You're not people. 

You've proven that to me over and over again. 

“You’re not.”

“It’s never too late to change.”

The black humour of this sentence makes him smile, and forget for a moment the smell of blood that embalms the boat. 

“Rarely have I known you so loquacious. Are you trying to distract me?”

His voice is tinged with an audible smile, which falters a bit in front of the quiet confidence of his travel companion. 

The sea no longer seems so calm to him. 

She moves forward with a sure step. 

“What did you tell me at the convent? Ah yes, that's it.”

She's so close, he can smell all of her in one breath. Listens to her so attentively that the air seems to become solid. 

She comes very close, her chin raised high. So proud. 

“One should never rush a nun.”

One second passes. He laughs about it. 

The boat explodes. He doesn't laugh anymore. 

And when he pushes her against the deck to wring her neck, the nun has a smile so big, so fine and so burning with satisfaction that he freezes. 

I'm going to kill you Agatha, that's one too many, the game was over. Her neck is so frail in his hands, and yet she smiles. So human, yet invincible. 

“Go ! I won.”

He never has. Might as well hate. Somebody.

“The last thing your eyes will ever see—-“

He never has. wanted to. hurt. Anyone. So. deeply. 

“is the disgust that overflows from mine.”

But he has never been so impressed. 

His hands clasped her neck, her face, he felt her suffocate; and she kept smiling. He squeezes a little harder; her smile widens. 

And finally he lets her go, leaves her on the deck, and jumps back to his last earthen box. 

He swims down. But he can't see the water, or the boat. 

He can't see anything but a big smile, overshadowed by her eyes screaming with satisfaction. 

———————-

He's closing the chamber. He's burned: exhausted. Agatha's exhausted him. 

It's a thought that stirs up that admiring anger. 

The box slowly sinks into the water; above him, the burning Demeter projects a clear light to the bottom of the ocean. 

He locks himself in, and seals himself in safety. 

Through the gaps in the wood, he sees fire, a candlestick, dolls. Oh, that's right: the cargo. 

So many dolls. Little blondes in pink dresses, little brunettes in blue dresses, little redheads in green dresses.

And a tall brunette in a nun's habit. He squints and observes. The darkness is not a problem. 

Funny doll when she dies, Agatha Van Helsing. 

Her hair floats around her like a halo, and she falls elegantly to the bottom, a huge smile still on her lips. From here he can see both her eyes open, as he can see her consciousness slowly fade away. Bubbles of air come out of her nose, out of her mouth. And still she smiles. 

That's how she dies, he thinks to himself as he lies down. Agatha Van Helsing. Alone, ignored, a piece of flesh, of good flesh, at the bottom of an ocean. Unknown even to those whose lives she saved. 

Misunderstood till the end. 

He sees her eyes close. 

It is his sign of respect, to let her die. Her last trick. He's exhausted. Away from the new world. 

She dies. 

Who else would he play such a beautiful game with? 

She blew up the ship. She chose this death. 

He closes his eyes; useless, her smile doesn't leave him, her image playing on eyelids. 

Agatha dies. Agatha dies. Agatha dies, and it's not even him who kills her. 

She played well. Really well played. But she lost. 

Or did she win? 

He can still hear her. 

“I won!”

His voice so clear to his ears. You didn't win Agatha. 

But you didn't lose. 

He opens his eyes. 

She didn't lose. He didn't win. 

So if I don't die... Neither will you. We've got one more set to play. God will get you back another day. Tonight, you are for me. 

His fist smashes through wood without any difficulty. In less than a second, he has Agatha in his arms, and in less than three, they burst the surface.

He feels her ribs under his robe as he pulls her to shore. She doesn't weigh much. He hauls himself up to the land of the new world, and lays Madame Balaur down. The thought of that name would probably make him laugh in any other time.

The grass is fresh, and he's pissed. 

Mad at himself, mad at her. 

He puts her down on the ground and kneels down beside her. 

He doesn't even have to press on her rib cage: she turns and coughs, once, twice, ten times. Less and less water accompanies her spasms, and her two clenched hands tear out lumps of earth. Her hair sticks to her face and shoulders. He hears her breath. 

If paradise looks like this, it's not worth the detour, she must think. 

Agatha, how hard it is to kill you! Even with whole ocean it is difficult. 

He looks at her, leaning against a maple tree, hands in his pockets. He discerns her shoulder blades when she coughs, and when she looks up, there is no trace of a smile on her lips or in her eyes. Rather a mixture of surprise, disgust and rage. 

He smiles in front of her as he sees her understand. Looking at the boat, her own hands, and understanding. That's right, Agatha. We weren't finished yet. And there was no way I was going to let you win with a little powder. 

“You’ve got me... “

She's searching, can't find the rest of her sentence. 

“I think the word you're looking for is 'Thank you,' Agatha.”

He has a voice full of mockery, and reaches out a hand to help her stand. She grabs it reluctantly. Ouch, her nails are damaged. We'll have to do something about that. 

She wobbles, he politely keeps her hand. The new land is full of promise. Agatha is full of promise too, of a different kind. 

All in his thoughts, he doesn't see the nun grasping his shoulder. By reflex, he grabs her by the hip as if to start a dance. 

He should make her dance here, under the moon, in the new world. He should make her waltz while the corpses of the passengers float ashore. She's a smart, lively, cultured woman. Someone of his level. Almost.

He should keep her. 

Make her his bride. 

Their faces are almost touching; he could kiss her. 

“No” Cuts off the sister's voice.

“No ?”

No to what? He didn't say a word. He frowns and scans her features.

He sees her face harden. He still feels her hand in his own, the other on his shoulder. Always sees her chapped lips up close, even feels her breath. She smiles under the moon, radiating a smug insolence. 

“Even if it had been so, Count Dracula, I certainly would not have let you kiss me.”

“Passed like that?”

“You went to get your box, you locked yourself in it.”

“I know, Agatha, it happened ten minutes ago.” 

His smile goes down as hers goes up. 

“Of course not, Count Dracula, it happened 124 years ago. Or rather it didn't happen. You locked yourself in your crate like a dog goes to the kennel, and I drowned.”

A fresh wind sweeps her hair, sends her smell up his nose. The salt of the sea, the taste of her blood, the cheap soap lent by the captain. He no longer smiles: his black eyes stare at her, his hands still holding her. 

“I died that night. And you know it. Then wake up.”

“I don't sleep.”

He feels it, feels the warmth of her body, the roughness of her damaged palms. 

“You're not sleeping, you're dreaming.”

He smiles, raises a hand to caress her cheek condescendingly. 

“My dear Agatha. Vampires don't dream.”

She tilts her head and squints. She has always had an overly expressive face. 

When she answers, his hand always against her face, he feels the folds of her eyes against the pads of his fingers when she smiles. 

“You are dreaming because you are biting yourself, Dracula.”

———- 

His eyelids open suddenly. It takes him a second to realize where he is. Hard, compact earth, smell of chrysanthemums, night, insects, silence, no one. 

Where has he landed again? 

His head hurts like hell, and his Dior shirt is up to his elbows. Two deep red spikes decorate his wrist.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to be kidding me. 

He grunts in annoyance as he rubs his forehead. He, who thought, in five hundred years, he had exhausted all the first times. 

A large block of marble to his right helps him up. The moon takes its place again, and bright rays strike his hand. His hand and the stone. 

An old grey stone, bumpy, fragmented in places but clean. No flowers. A grave. 

A cemetery.

He laughs, laughs his lungs out as he realizes he's in a bloody graveyard. 

He laughs and laughs. Then his eyes fall on the engraved black lettered name. A particular name from Holland. And he stops. 

And that name craved into the stone and his wrist, make him realize that he has a big problem. 

So he walks away, without looking back, looking for a way to get the name on the stone out of his head. To remove himself of the ghost of Agatha van Helsing.


	4. The covent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is not right. He can smell it. Something is not right. He can see it. He sees it in the corner off her smiling lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I did a repost because I messed up some stuff.   
> Have a good reading !

"So that's what I should have done? "

He's whispering to himself, but he senses that she's listening. His footsteps make the snow crunch, the village they're walking through is deserted. 

"Perhaps it is. That's what you wish you'd done, anyway. "

She walks next to him, leaves no trace on the spotless carpet of white.

The sun barely sets. The purple light strikes against the old brick houses and heavy wooden doors. He remembers the path.

Why is he here? What nonsense. 

Lucky for him, this little village near Budapest hasn't changed much. He has the feeling of returning to a pleasant past. The dilapidated houses, the silent bell tower, the badly pruned trees. 

His cloak rustles against the ground, then falls silent when he stops in front of the heavy wrought iron gate. Incredible how he remembers every detail of this convent. The colour of the stones, the broken window on the second floor, the uneven floor. 

And the taste of Agatha's blood, of course. 

"You must have felt so, so powerful behind that gate. "

"You have no idea. "

"I drank your blood. Believe me, I have a very clear idea. "

He can still feel it against his tongue the taste of her jubilation, her ferocity, her pride, her curiosity, all the nectar he drank greedily. 

He was invited once so he passes now through the gates without any trouble. They're rusted, corroded, eaten away by dampness and lack of maintenance. In fact, the convent seems on the verge of collapsing in on itself. Never restored. Barely cleaned. It almost still smells of blood. 

Places of massacre are good real estate investments, though. 

He's breathing in the cold air. 

"Aaaah. Our first meeting, Agatha. "

"Are you nostalgic?” She's got an ear to ear smile hanging on her lips. 

They exchange glances. 

"It's a good memory. "

He has a brief vision of Agatha's knife against his lips, the early evening humiliation, the triumphant voice of the nun, and he corrects himself. 

"All in all... "

It inspires the smells of this gigantic tomb. Thirty-seven sisters just for him. What a feast. 

His nails scrape the stone, and he takes the stairs to his right. An ancient workshop crypt, Agatha, your bad-girl side comes out. 

"You were a poor nun, Agatha. "

"It was a default choice. " 

"That or housewife, what's the difference?"

"I'd rather belong to a God than to a man."

He smiles and squints at her sharp remarks. God has the advantage of not having a solid envelope. 

Agatha's ghost allows him to forget the reason for his coming. Because Count Dracula experiences a feeling that does not please him, not at all. 

It sticks to him: he can drink, keep himself busy, dance all night, nothing to do. 

Agatha.

He can't get rid of her, he can’t bring himself to want to. He doesn't even want her to leave. 

Impotent.

The first - and only - time it happened was here. In this convent, in front of this sister with so little liver. 

He feels like an idiot. He feels like an idiot because he feels, he knows he's missing something. He's never spoken so clearly to one of his victims before. Never had the opportunity to observe them as he's observing Agatha right now. He has her on the tip of his tongue. But London doesn't reveal him anything. 

So he makes his way back; from the convent to the shores of the new world. With her.

He pushes the door of the workshop: a cloud of dust comes out of it. How long's it been since anyone's been in here? 

The small skylight diffuses the first rays of the moon, and highlights the office. There are no more notebooks, no more notes, no more jars full of formula. Probably at the Harker Foundation.

A quick thought of Zoe.

On the other hand, there's still her pens and inks. He caresses a black spot on the wood with his fingertip. 

Agatha wanders behind him, her eyes filled with a nostalgia that she refrains from showing. 

"You can't imagine the time I've spent here. " 

He leans against the desk, lets her talk. It's a place of great importance: one of the nodes of their rivalry. 

She seems perfectly at ease here, looks out the skylight, inspects the room. She's left everything there. Barely finished sentences, open bottles of ink. The corpses of her sisters. 

"You see, the last traces of me weren't in a paper file. They're here. They're everywhere I've ever been. "

She points the stain at the desk with a smile and looks up to the sky. 

"I did that one when Mother Superior came to snub me! I was so concentrated that I had missed morning prayers. "

"What were you studying? "

"Greek. "

He's clapping his hands. Delicious Agatha. Greek. 

"So getting on the Demeter must have been a real drag. "

"I didn't like the irony. " 

"Aaaah, but you understood it, Agatha."

He turns to her and her smug look on her face. Brilliant Agatha van Helsing. 

"Of course I understood her, Count Dracula. Take your pantry up to the Demeter. Name of the Greek goddess of the harvest, and therefore, of abundance. "

He smiles, uncovers the teeth. It's a real pleasure not to make his puns for himself anymore. He has had five hundred years to cultivate himself: and it only took Agatha forty years to learn Romanian, English, Greek, science and himself. 

"My humour doesn't have much effect on you. "

"It's just that it is not very subtle. "

He doesn't answer anything, leaves her this sleeve not without some annoyance. He walks up to her. Face to face, they observe each other. He remembers how thirsty he was that night, even after all the sisters. He was thirsty for the blood he had glimpsed. 

"You bit me. What happened next? " 

"I've tasted you. " he corrects. As he restrained himself so that she might live. She laughs and makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. 

"Well, let's say. You've tasted me. What's next? "

"Then, when you fell asleep--"

"Fainted. "

"When you fell asleep, I lifted you up, and brought you back to the inn where my trunks were waiting for me. I laid you down on the bed, and arranged the formalities for the Demeter. I had to take Johnny there, anyway. All I had to do was change the name."

"Mrs. Balaur. "

"It fits you so good. "

"You know it was a close call for them to mark that on my grave. " 

He laughed, and he held the door for her to get out first. Gentleman. She goes upstairs first, they leave the spot. 

"It would have been a pleasure for me to have--"

His sentence gets cut, and he stops in the middle of the stairs. Agatha also stops, a few steps higher, a haughty smile on her lips and her head held high. 

What an idiot he is. How long has she understood ? And how, more importantly, did she understand before he did?! 

"That's it? Did you understand, Count? Did you finally? I've given you a lot of clues, though. I thought you were sharper. " 

He climbs the steps that separate them slowly, eyes glued to her own, until he reaches her height. 

"Agatha... "

He devours with his eyes her face, her hollow cheeks, her spilt lips, her loose hair. He reads on her features, he who has never paid attention to the souls of mortals. 

Self-sufficiency, defiance, mockery. But also sorrow, anger and resignation.

They remain like that for several minutes. And finally, he puts words to what has escaped him until then. 

"Agatha. It's you, Agatha. "

She smiles.  
He is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you emi. If you want a good fic about those two, check her account ! It’s emicmc.
> 
> And you ? Did you get what the count missed ? Write your théorie !  
> Thank you again so much for the comment and kudo.


	5. The truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now he sees it.   
> Now it is obvious.   
> Now he want to hold her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed SO MUCH reading all your théorie !!! You were so clever, and some were so good that it would deserve a fic just for it. 
> 
> I hope it will be clear. If not, don’t mind to ask ! 
> 
> Enjoy !

He's frozen in the stairwell.  
Now that he knows, that's all he can see. He sees it in her eyes, in her posture, in her hands. He looks at her neck, with the rope marks on it. She follows his gaze, touches the marks with her fingertips. 

"I've shown them to you several times, though. "

"It's you. "

"I flooded you with clues. "

"It's really you. "

She smiles, crosses her hands along her dress. Her falsettoes dig into the skin. 

Agatha Van Helsing.  
What a little sneak you are. 

The nun's smile has a bitter aftertaste. Her dress crinkles in a rustle as she sits on the stone steps. The darkness makes her features even harder than usual, and it is a nagging frustration not to be able to touch her.   
She opens her hands and speaks.

"You seem a little lost to me, Count Dracula. Go ahead, give me your theories and I will grace you with answers . "

He usually gets annoyed by the fun in her voice. But tonight he's too devastated by what he's just grasped. Putting words to it is awfully complicated. He tries anyway. 

"I bit you for the last time in Cabin Nine on the Demeter. "

"Correct. "

"I've absorbed your memories so far. "

"Correct. "  
His face is decomposing as he's putting things back together. 

"But you hadn't been hanged yet."

" Correct. Unpleasant experience, moreover. "

"You hadn't drowned yet. "

A short silence punctuates his sentence, and Agatha bites her inner cheeks. It's not one of her best moments either. 

"Correct. "

"If you were a reminiscence, a memory, an image of your blood, you wouldn't have access to all those memories. "

"Correct. "

"But you have access to it. "

"Correct. "

"You remember the rope around your neck. "

"Pretty good, yeah."

"You remember feeling like you were dying. "

"Correct. "

"You're not a memory Agatha. "

A longer silence this liver. In the nun's clear eyes passes a shadow of spite, disappointment, sadness. No. No, she is not a memory. She is more, much more. Her response is less vigorous, her voice more steady, her smile less frank. 

"Correct. "

"Agatha. "

He squats one step lower, gets up to her height. His hands grasp the stone so hard that the staircase crumbles. 

Agatha Van Helsing.   
She supports her eyes, without a trace of struggle. For a few minutes they are in truce.   
It's not a memory, not a reminder of what he's aiming at. She remembers her death, she knows that they failed to mark "Madame Balaur" on her grave. 

"I have always been told, Count Dracula, that I was a strange kind of nun. "

He's never heard her voice so soft. 

It's there. It's really there. Her spirit, at least. Agatha Van Helsing is stuck, stuck with the very cause of her damnation. Agatha Van Helsing has sinned out of pride, and now she is paying the price. 

"It is you. "

The euphoria of finding her whole is almost as pleasant as the torture of not being able to touch her is hellish. 

Agatha Agatha Agatha. There you are. 

There's a minute, an hour, maybe two left sitting on that crumbling staircase, not saying what doesn't need to be said. 

Then Agatha gets up, without another word, and climbs the few steps up to the big courtyard.   
He stays a few seconds longer, his eyes getting lost in the tiny ink stains on the wood of the desk.   
He doesn't know how to tell her that, strange and incongruous as it is, he is deeply sorry she is there. Unconsciously, no doubt he had hoped for a beautiful place after their big brawls. A paradise even, why not. 

After all, who deserved heaven more than Agatha van Helsing? 

—————————

For Agatha, drowning was the most painful experience of her life. But also the most soothing.   
When the water began to enter her lungs, to invade her body without force, it was like exploding from within. Her head was screaming, her heart was trying to stop, her lungs were bogged down without understanding. 

But she had used the last of her strength. And she had to die. So she let the sea take her. 

From that decision, things turned out softer. Like an exploding soap bubble, her resistance had given way to a feeling of peaceful acceptance. The water around her body, under her clothes, in her hair had seemed less cold, more welcoming. She was fine. She was dying at the end of a fight she had won, to save an entire country.   
Her eyes had closed. So good, so warm. 

And a few last bubbles of air had sealed Agatha Van Helsing's last exhalation under the light of the burning Demeter. 

——- 

"When did you wake up, Agatha?"

They are sitting on the highest village hill, on a large trunk infested with moss and lichens. The moon has awakened the fauna of the night. Their eyes are lost on the windows with the curtains drawn. There are no more inhabited houses near the convent. 

"At the same time as you."

They look at each other with a common old age in the hollows of their eyelids. The Count himself has somewhere in his face a kind of empathy he didn't think he could feel anymore. 

"I opened my eyes as if after a long sleep. I didn't go to heaven, which isn't surprising. But I'm not damned to hell either, which is surprising. How disappointing to think that even in the afterlife no one wants me! "

There is no trace of self-pity in the nun's voice; only a black humour that makes them smile in unison. 

"I would have liked to have you in eternity, but someone blew up the boat. " 

He accuses her with an ingenuous face, and she gratifies him with a reproving look tinged with amusement.   
Agatha raises her eyes to the clear sky, to the foliage, to the galaxies whose names she knows, to God who did not want her - not yet -. 

"This is my penance, Count Dracula. I am not dead, I am not alive: but I am conscious. "

"And you're with me. " 

"I have to say, I find the almighty a little petty on this one. " 

He's laughing, but he's not answering anything. Having said that, he too finds the almighty, if he exists, a little petty. He's stuck with an Agatha he can't touch, he can't bite, he can't bring back. Stuck with his greatest regret. 

And she's trapped there. With him, the person she despised the most while she was alive... The person who understood her best, whom she understood best too.   
Who else but Agatha van Helsing can claim to know the Count, and who else but Dracula can claim to know the nun? 

He has - and he notes that it happens only with her - a sincere and deep empathy for Agatha. And although her presence is more than appreciated, he knows that it is far from voluntary.   
So while she looks up at the sky, looking for answers or shooting stars, he observes her. Observes her profile, the roundness of her chin, her aquiline nose, the arch of her eyebrows that coats her pale eyes. 

"Agatha?"

"What?"

She doesn't turn her eyes to him. Probably so that he won't read too much obvious grief in it. Proud Agatha. 

"Have you ever heard the joke about the vampire and the ghost on a full moonlit night? "

She frowns, gives him a look, and ends up smiling after slight hesitation. He gives it back to her. It's the first time they've smiled together without having a dirty trick up their sleeves. It's got a weird taste. 

Then the nun looks up to the stars.   
Could be worse.

Agatha Agatha.   
I won’t let you stay that way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did this part surprise you ?   
> And BACK TO THÉORIE !!! WHAT do you think Dracula will do ? Since he AND Agatha are traped with each other ?   
> Let me know what you think about it !


	6. The Dance

Agatha's unhappy. 

He feels it; he knows her. 

Oh, that doesn't sound like anything. She's just standing with her hands folded over the front of her dress. All he sees of her is a broken profile and a cascade of golden brown hair. He knows what she's looking at. The men downstairs, the neon lights, the cars, the planes. Women too; she looks at them a lot. If the Count were a man a little more focused on his fellow man, he would easily guess that she is looking at what she herself never had a chance to become. A person, an independent person who walks down the street without a chaperone, a whole person who doesn't have to hide in a big blue suit. He would understand that it's not envy that Agatha feels, but regret. Regret that she was born too soon, too far in advance. 

He doesn't see all that. He feels, on the other hand, that she's not happy. That's the limit of his selective empathy.   
Silent Agatha is a clue in itself. She spent the whole day asking him questions about everything. And now she's silent. 

"Tell me Agatha. "

She turns to him, doesn't uncross her hands. Her eyes are bright but her face is grave. The lights from outside dig into her cheeks.   
He looks at her, looking for his question. Can't manage to formulate it without whiny accents. She has to guess it from his features, but doesn't help him. Damn sadist. Your nun's habit isn't fooling anyone. 

A second pass, and she's back to contemplating the view below. 

He gets annoyed from his leather sofa and pushes up the sleeves of his shirt. 

It's hard to put it into words.   
Ah. He's got her.   
With a snap of his tongue, he asks his question. 

"You led me to believe that you were a memory. "

"You cheated. "

"Pardon?"

He gets up on the couch, elbows on his knees and hands folded.   
Agatha turns to him with her eyes high, her shoulders very straight in her nun's robe.   
She steps forward, leans against the wall. 

"You cheated on the Demeter. During our chess game. I was winning. "

He raises his eyebrows and leans against the leather. This. That's unexpected. 

"Is that all you learned on our journey, my dear Agatha?"

"I was winning, and you took advantage of my ignorance of the situation to cheat. "

Her voice is vindictive, her tone almost outraged.   
Oh! 

"Oh! So that’s what it was."

He gets up, approaches her until he can discern the mocking shades of blue in her eyes. 

"It was revenge, Agatha. "  
She's smiling now. 

"Correct. "

He thinks it's a little low. A little salty.   
But quite elegant. 

"You fish for pride, Sister."

Shoulder shrug. 

"At the point where I am. "

Black humor. She has this incredible ability to turn the worst things into a dark joke. All her life, her life that was so lonely, so sad, so empty, so badly lived, so frustrated, she only got through it by finding an ironic, acidic amusement in it.   
Even here. Even trapped, in her own personal hell, she laughs.   
He realizes she's probably seen more than she wants to. She's seen him drink, seen him kill, seen him play like a big cat with these little humans of the modern world. And even though he finds it quite exciting, knowing that he has her as an audience, he vaguely suspects that the other way around is not fair. 

He's not sure where the line between his hell and her hell is. 

Does she watch when he eats? Yeah, that's just like her. She's not the type to run away from penance, rather to face it as a burden she deserves. He knows she listened to the sisters scream; he made them scream for her, by the way.

It's strange, though, to have such a mixture of feelings towards someone. Wanting to play, to break, to rock, to soothe, to hurt, to win, to touch, to break: and all at the same time.   
Funny cocktail. 

Come on, Agatha. I'm not going to leave you like this. After all you and I have been through, it's a bland end to everything. 

Not to mention the fact that Agatha is in his head day and night is going to end up driving him crazy, driving them both crazy. 

They are always facing each other: but the nun's clear eyes are as if magnetized by the life below. She'll go crazy here, she knows it. Not right away, because she's tough. But it will come. In a few years, a few decades. When she sees the bodies piling up around Dracula, whom she hasn't managed to kill... Since he's been here already, how many dozens of bodies has she got to memorize. She remembers all their names, like a funeral memory game. Justine Cadian, Frederick Someray, Elizabeth Jones, and so many others. 

She has never had a need to confide, to share her fears with anything other than these notebooks. But in the vastness of nothing, she thinks of the Mother Superior's last oath. God. It's now, now that she's at her lowest point, alone, with no one to save. Now is when she needs him. Because even for her, the arms of loneliness will become heavy. Not right away; but it will come. She knows, she knows that she is fighting against the inexorable. 

"Agatha. " 

She tears her gaze from the tingle of life below. Disgust, empathy, desolation, anger, tenderness, rage.   
Impotence.   
If he decides to go into any school and make her look at it, there's nothing she can do about it. She counts the days before he realizes the blackmail he is in a position to do to her: has even thought about a counter-offensive.   
She ends up laying eyes on him, almost surprised to see him still in front of her. 

It's a very complicated exercise for him, empathy. First of all, because it has never been a need or an interest.   
And because, on the other hand, understanding the other gives a very unpleasant feeling. He would like to sort out what he feels about her. Just take advantage of their verbal jousting and her clairvoyance, let the shadows behind her stiff mimicry go by. 

"Can you dance? "

She stays off-limits for a while, purses her lips with a smile. 

"It's not even worth thinking about, Count Dracula. "

"Oh, please, Agatha. You're afraid I'm wandering around with my hands? "

They're eye to eye for a few seconds. His argument does hit the nail on the head. 

"I'm a terrible dancer. "

"You're a nun, of course you're a bad dancer. "

She pinches her lips. That's not entirely untrue. 

He steps forward, reaches out his hand.   
She stands still for a second. 

It's exhausting being her. To have this morality, this acute awareness of right, wrong, do's and don'ts. 

She looks at the hand without really seeing it. They can make each other's eyesight terrible, both of them. She can haunt him to the point of making him crazy, he can make her suffer her impotence.

Agatha's a fighter. Not a savior. 

She puts her palm in his, stiff. She doesn't feel the touch, just a kind of warmth. He doesn't feel anything either. It's going to be a complicated dance. It's strange, to see this hand in his: even stranger than if he closes his eyes, he's no longer aware of it. 

"Do you know the steps? "

"I know the theory. "

She doesn't want to make things easy. But can't afford to make them difficult. 

"Just start. Look at my feet. "

One two three.

She raises her eyebrows.  
  
One, two, three. 

Ah, now she's wrinkling them. 

One, two, three. 

"I think I get it. "

"I hope so, Agatha, or I'm going to start doubting your intelligence. "

"Is it conceivable for you to dance in silence? "   
She says, lovely. He makes a hand gesture on his lips, not a word.

He gives the times by flapping his foot, tells her when to leave. 

One, two, three. She follows. One, two, three. It's kind of strange to see his hand crossing hers regularly. 

One two

"Agathaaaa your feet. "

"My only regret is that you don't feel mine crushing yours. "

He gets back into position with a laugh. He feels nothing, just sees her clumsy gestures.   
Not clumsy, no. Dry. Her body's stiff.

"It must become a repetitive gesture, Agatha. "

One two three

"You've been doing this for five hundred years, don't make me think you know what it's like to be a beginner. "

One two three 

"Think again. I was a terrible dancer, a disaster. It took me years to learn. "

One two three  
She has safer gestures now that they're talking.

"Really? You remember that ? "

One two three. 

"Aaaaah yes. For crushing a lot of feet, for being ashamed at more than one party. "

"When you were human. "

One two three it is not a question. It's strange to dance with someone you can't feel. It's strange to dance with Agatha. With Agatha in her nun's robe. He knows the fabric, guesses what texture of her hair would have felt against the back of his hand.

One two three.

"How much do you remember? "

One two three one two three.   
He hasn't danced in a long time. 

"More impressions. "

"Impressions? Like feelings? Do you have images, sounds? Colours? Do you feel the difference between your human and vampire memories? "

"How can you ask so many questions in so little breath? "

"I'm a ghost, I can't breathe. "

"This is my divine punishment. "

He says it with a smile, but he doesn't mean it any less. He concentrates on the damaged hand in his without being able to feel it.

One two three. 

She stops dancing, he almost goes right through her. ( At the same time, she wouldn't feel anything. ) 

Agatha tilts her head, and looks at her dance partner's face with grave attention filled with hesitation. 

"Are you trying to make my life easier, Dracula? At last. Death? "

There's a horn outside.   
He smiles. 

"Correct. "  
It's rare to hear the Count in a soft voice. Maybe it's even sadder than the rest. But strangely comforting. 

She closes her eyes. They stay that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL your théorie were EXCELLENTE and SO funny. Do you have any idea for the next part ?  
> I hope you liked this one.  
> Thank you for everything ❤️
> 
> And thank you Em, again !


	7. Anubis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it’s summer time, I am back ! Thank you for all your support. So much kindness. Damn. You are fantastic.

He's seeing it now, late, so very late.

Agatha, Agatha. 

He feels the vibrations of her presence, her almost tangible existence. Her clear eyes tinted from pale to storm blue, tossed between her emotions.

"You are real." 

"And you're a damn fool."

Now is not the time to be witty, dear Agatha. ( But a nun calling him sacred is unheard of ).

He senses with acute foresight the smell of wet bark pines, the rasping firmness of the steps under his expensive shoes, and the long, thin thorn that insinuates itself into his chest, with the flavour of an emotion that he has yet to define. He murmurs. 

"You drowned. "

" I was there, thank you. "

It's true that she gave him clues: more than one! The Demeter, the drowning, her appearance. 

A night wind rises, the nun's robe doesn't move. She looks at the crypt again for a moment, her eyes shining, and returns to the courtyard with a brisk step. He observes the swaying of her hair over the blue of the garment until she disappears from his sight, before he follows after her. 

She waits for him at the gate, one hand on the iron.

In a few hours, the sun will come up. Zoe should be asleep, on a high-dose of morphine. He envies her. He could use a good night's sleep. 

She knows he's watching her. Doesn’t make a big deal of it. She exists only for him - without any romance, that goes without saying. No one sees her, no one hears her. Nobody feels her presence. She has tried the most improbable solutions, has gone near mediums, near children, near animals even, in desperation. Nothing. They all pass through her with the same indifference.

"I thought I would be allowed to go to purgatory. "

Her throat is tight, her voice is dry, a little aggressive maybe. She's trapped, and now he knows it. 

He's leaning against the wall, arms folded. She sees his fingers trembling: ah!

She has no doubt that a lot of questions are bugging him. It's the least she can do for him. 

He doesn't have the same look on his face while glancing at her, now that he knows. He's scrutinizing her, looking at her skin for what he's been missing for weeks.

"When?"

His very voice is changed. Deeper, almost serious, and he's still scrutinizing her. 

"I woke up the first time you bit Dr. Helsing."

It was almost a bloody month ago Agatha. 

"And before that? Were you asleep? "

"Of course I was asleep, since I just told you I woke up! "

She closes her eyelids for a second. She can't help but be furious. It's so unfair! She fought for good. Maybe not always in the right way, maybe not always guided by the purest motives. She's angry, irritable. She's dead, but she's conscious, and that makes her obnoxious. Fortunately, being obnoxious to the Count doesn't make her conscious any heavier. 

He's observing the marks on her neck now. She's staring at him, and he doesn't give a shit about it. Funny, it's usually the other way around.

"I should have seen. How else could you have appeared with that ? "

He taps his own throat, in reference to the marks left by the hemp rope. It was so obvious : he feels like a fool for not noticing. Agatha should have appeared to him similar to the way she looked at his last bite. But she had been "Hanged" many hours later. He hadn't absorbed her essence, it wasn't a projection. Agatha Van Helsing stood there before him, upright and dignified, and almost perfectly dead. 

"I shall spare you the questioning. I felt myself die, and as you may guess it was particularly painful. Then nothing. I might have fainted for a second. I woke up in a stranger's house. I saw you bite Dr. Helsing, as the pig you are, I saw you come out of the lab, and I find your present home less cliché than your castle. “

He comes off the wall, a cat shakes the tiles of the convent. 

She doesn't look at him anymore, follows the animal with her eyes. He stops in between, turns a suspicious eye towards the man, then flees with a muffled step. 

"Why didn't you appear to me in the cell then? I had, we can say, time to kill. "

She sniffs with such visible contempt that a slap wouldn't have done less. He opens his arms, looking for an explanation. Agatha has always had a dog's temper, but it seems to him - how can he puts it - a bit overpowering. He's a count, all the same. 

"What, Agatha?" he ends up asking, a bit annoyed, he must admit, by her sudden silence. 

She crosses her arms and her fingers toying delicately with the fabric of her sleeve, chin up.

Her answer is not long to come, overflowing with a sudden hatred that overwhelms him.

"You're supposed to be a clever man, or at least a man of experience. Figure it out."

"You're the most insolent nun, woman, human being I've ever had a conversation with!" He replies, with amusement and irritation. 

At least, she is speaking. 

She unhooks her arms and moves forward, so abruptly that he almost retreats, then stands in front of him. In a convent by night, an almost exact replica of their first meeting, her words perfectly enunciated so that he doesn't miss a single one. 

"You can't imagine how much I hate being here with you. Count Dracula, listen carefully: I would rather be alone in hell.“

Her last words are precise and terrible, and the last syllable, scratched by her accent, is harsh and unapologetic. 

Her eyes gleam for a second with a myriad of emotions that he does not understand, but in which he grasps a hatred and despair so intertwined that they are imprinted on his own. 

A brief twitch on his lip agitates the nun, before she passes him. He feels that she has disappeared without needing to turn around, taking with her the answers to all his questions. 

Agatha's dead. That's for sure. Agatha's unhappy. Expected of course, nobody likes to die. Agatha didn't appear right away. Agatha is an entity of her own, a kind of ghost visible only to him. Ridiculous. Ri-di-cu-lous. He's crazy, no doubt. Did he eat a madman without knowing it ? 

The trip to the ship is silent. The nun is discreet, not a sound, not a word. They board a little before daybreak on the "Anubis".

He stops for a moment in front of the golden calligraphy inlaid on the bow. 

" The Anubis "

He doubts that Agatha will appreciate the humour. But he does. Agatha is not gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once more to Emi, who deals with my poor english ❤️ 
> 
> Since my sister will propably find this one day, just so you know, she will blow us all away ! 
> 
> A comment is always welcome, and will always find an answer. ❤️


	8. The bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agatha is tired

Night fell quickly on the Anubis bridge. Three days at sea, one stopover. He came back up just in time! A little more and they cast off without him. Being a count isn't what it used to be. 

\- At least wipe your lips. 

Devil. He almost jumped. Three days Agatha hasn't appeared, hasn't spoken, hasn't answered: in short, three days she's been sulking him like a little girl. 

He takes out a white handkerchief from his inside pocket and carries it out. Ah. It's true that it's dyed purple. 

Dracula leans against the rail, full. Satisfied with his stopover, satisfied with his meal, and satisfied with Agatha's certainly horrendous but nevertheless original company. 

The salt of the sea refreshes him. With the night comes the myriad of possibilities. 

\- Agatha I am curious. What is it like, the life of a ghost? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Sleepy? Do you feel old?

He turns his face towards her. The two of them on a boat, that should make them laugh or at least make him nostalgic. On the contrary, he only feels a hollow sensation of discomfort ignored. Hunger that is probably subsiding. Nothing more.

\- You could have waited a little longer. 

Agatha's voice is dry and accusatory. He raises a surprised eyebrow. Not even sarcasm to cover her bad mood? 

\- Waiting for what, Agatha. 

He is irritated. He doesn't know why, and it's all the more irritating.   
He wants to get to know her. He has never hidden from it. He has searched her memories, her life, her intimacy more than once. And having only a block of marble in front of him irritates him. 

\- Waiting to eat. You could have lasted for days. It was free. 

Anger. It's a relief to hear it in her voice! At least he knows that. It's a natural effect they have on each other, anger. Some flashes come back to him. The boy's young beard, his happy teeth, and his sweet taste. 

\- He was charming and he suggested an excursion. You have to seize opportunities when they come along. 

Agatha doesn't know what to say as this answer is so right. Terrible and right. 

She can't sleep, she can't disappear. Can't not see.   
She is tired tonight. Too many bodies, too much death. 

He is unreasonable. No matter what she says, no matter what she does. He likes to eat, considers killing as a side effect. Before her eyes, in the hollow of the waves and the swirls that the ship's hull lifts, puddles of blood are grafted on to the boy of this afternoon. The youngest son of a sibling of six. They will look for him everywhere, they will never again live happily, serenely, whole again. And it is her fault. If only she had finished the job. 

She is tired. 

The wind is blowing. She crosses her hands on the wood. Gently rest her forehead against her knuckles. Against the rough skin of her hands, she feels that she is crying. Stupid little Agatha. Crying is useless, crying is just a way to escape guilt instead of facing it, to suffer it, poor and stupid girl, poor and stupid nun. 

She stays like that for a while. She hardly feels the cold of the air, probably imagines it. She preferred to drown herself ten more times. She would suffer without suffering the pains of others. 

\- He begged you. 

Her voice is barely perceptible. In a way, whether he could hear or not, it didn't matter.   
She heard him. That boy. Philip. Not even thirty years old. She heard him afraid, heard the gurgling of supplication. She raised her head and contemplated the sea. Eyelid closed, it's even worse, sharper. 

\- I didn't notice it.   
\- Don't make me believe that it would have changed anything. 

He doesn't answer anything. She is right. It wouldn't have changed anything. She knows that. 

Time flies like the boat. Dracula observes Agatha watching the moon, Dracula observes Agatha. Her eyes are shining, so ghosts can cry.

He pretends not to see anything. Maybe so as not to hurt her pride. Maybe because he wouldn't know what to say. 

He doesn't want to hurt her. He even admires her. Never hid from that either. Agatha Agatha. 

She wakes him up from his thoughts. With the gesture of a child, she sits on the floor, face against the ledge, half hidden by her arms in a cross. Her eyes no longer stare at the moon or the sea, but at a point in nothingness. Her cheeks contract into a poor smile. 

\- I just want to die. 

Her voice is a whisper, almost covered by foamy noises. Her words tremble a little. She looks human. Alive. Vulnerable, more vulnerable than he has ever seen. Tiny in her big nun's robe. 

He kneels down too, his face towards her. She looks obstinately away. Definitely, ghosts cry. Or at least Agatha is. 

\- I know Agatha. 

He would kill her, if he could. He would miss her: but he would. Out of respect, out of affection. 

The nun closes her eyes, her hair beaten by the wind, and gently fades away. She is still there: he feels her. She has just withdrawn. Chaste Agatha, sad Agatha, almost dead Agatha. 

He stands up, soothing the folds of his costume with the flat of his hand, and is already almost gone when a detail in the corner of his eye freezes him. 

He turns and bends over, runs a finger over the wooden pad where Agatha has placed her forehead. 

He is not crazy. He sees them.   
On the worn mahogany. 

A few drops of tears. 

Ghosts cry, that's a fact.  
But real tears.   
That's another mystery.


	9. The walk

Agatha cries, Agatha cries, Agatha cries and her tears wet the wood of the ship.  
Agatha cries and her tears exist. Agatha exists. 

Dracula has to admit, despite his partial bad faith, that in hundreds of years of experience he has known nothing in common. 

He feels her: now that he knows she is there, he feels her all the time. Like a shadow behind his skull. It's not really unpleasant, he has always liked having an audience. However, and although it's hard for him to admit it, he was beginning to find it hard not to feel this thing.   
Guilt. That's what voices with accents of memory whispered to him. Guilt.

Count Dracula is brilliant. He knows it, he uses it to excess. Oh, it's not only because of himself: he has drunk doctors, philosophers, scientists. Agatha.   
But these very real tears, of his ghostly nemesis, are, he admits, far beyond his intelligence. 

Agatha observes the surroundings, doesn't miss a crumb, not a moment. He goes down to every port of call so that she can discover the world that books alone have portrayed to her.   
Tonight it is a warm coast, a sandy bay with campfires and laughter in the throat. From where he is, he perceives the music of the concrete piers, a little higher up. Behind, the shadow of a mountain cuts through the still luminous blue sky.

-Do you like it?

He hears the rustle of fabric to his right. Agatha Agatha. 

-I thought I would die without seeing all this. Well. I did. But you see what I mean. 

He smiles, stretches out his arms towards the city.

-Look at all that man has built Agatha. You worry too much about them. Science and curiosity will always save them. 

-Not from you.

-The cold kills more in a year than I have since I was born Agatha. Don't spoil my moments of poetry. 

-Was that poetry? You must have eaten mediocre writers.

The arrogance in her voice is familiar, palpable.  
She observes the world she lives in with relief. It is beautiful. Catastrophic and self-destructive but so beautiful. She would have liked to see so much of it in her lifetime. Wants to see more. 

-What was your family like, Agatha?

-Are you interested in others now? 

-Just you, since we are linked for eternity. Almost married by the universe in short.

-If I could throw up on you I would.

He laughs silently and stops with his back to the sea, arms folded. Their silence is embellished by crashing waves. The sea rises.   
In the corner of his eye he sees her sitting on her knees. The night cuts her profile, darkens her.

-You have known some of them. The Van Helsings. 

He nods with amusement. 

-None as good as you. 

She smiles and packs the sand with one hand.

-They were a family of warriors. Like yours. They captured vampires, creatures. I'm not even sure I remember. Maybe I made it all up. But I could hear them screaming, Dracula. 

Her eyes left the sand, sailing from fire to fire. A fold marks the centre of her forehead. He looks at her now. 

-I could hear them screaming every night. The creatures. My family wanted to understand them. They opened them up, questioned them. I used to clean the barn sometimes in the morning. After they had tested what they had to test. I washed the floor, threw away the red straw and put in new straw and then I would pray to God that it wouldn't happen again. But it would happen again. 

He doesn't know what to say. It's honest and huge. He drank her blood so many times, how the hell did he miss it? Agatha Van Helsing had closed her mind better than he had guessed. 

-When I heard the sisters screaming in the convent. I felt like them. I became like them. I paid for my curiosity with blood. 

Her features sag a little. She hears it sometimes, like echoes. She thinks she perceives them between two waves, between two winds. 

-They screamed so much. 

She knows he doesn't regret it. It's a game, a round that she has lost. Nothing more. For him, nothing more. She is waiting for his biting reflection underlining her defeat and her fault, her pride and her arrogance. But nothing comes. Nothing of the kind. 

-Let's walk now, Agatha. We can reach the cliff in the night. 

She raises her eyes to the Count, her eyebrows to the sky. But no malice, no mockery dyes his features. On the contrary, she is relieved to read in the expression muffled by the night only silent respect and absolute forgiveness.   
Of all forgiveness, Dracula's was not really the one she was looking for.   
But she accepts his arm, gets up, and walks.   
For tonight, the screams stops.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are my sis GET OUT or never let me know you read this.


End file.
